Friday, May 15, 2020

Championship of Scotland 1939

Max Pavey
     The year 1939 began with Laszlo Szabo winning the 1938/39 Hastings Congress and in mid-April Margate was won by Paul Keres, ahead of Jose Capablanca and Salo Flohr. The 11th USSR Championship was held in Leningrad from mid-April to mid-May and it was won by Mikhail Botvinnik followed by Alexander Kotov and Sergey Belavenets. 
     In 1939, the Olympiad (known at the time as the Hamilton-Russell Cup) along with the Women’s World Championship was played in Buenos Aires between August 21 and September 19, 1939. Germany won the gold medal, Poland silver, and Estonia bronze. Vera Menchik-Stevenson won the Women’s World Championship. When Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II on September 1st, Great Britain dropped out and its players returned to England and many players remained in Argentina. 
     Earlier in the year in Aberdeen, Max Pavey won the championship of Scotland. Pavey, who was born in Boston, Massachusetts on March 5, 1918, was a 21–year-old student from Brooklyn who was studying medicine in Glasgow.
     Pavey left Scotland soon after the tournament (in June) and only returned when he made a brief stop in 1955 when returning from the USA vs. USSR match in Moscow. Pavey died at the age of 39 on September 4, 1957, as a result of leukemia which he contracted on his job.
     Pavey wasn’t the only American playing for the championship. A virtually unknown player named Neil Bernstein was a student in Edinburgh as was the only somewhat better known Louis Geronimus (February 25 1916, New York City - August 31, 1989 Massapequa Park, NY). 
     The reason they were studying in Scotland was because there were limited places for Jewish students in US medical schools and many chose to go to Britain. Both joined Edinburgh’s Stockbridge Chess Club. Geronimus and Pavey knew each other from the intercollegiate chess team of City College of New York. 
     Geronimus, from Brooklyn, returned to the US in July 1939, and the outbreak of war soon after put an end to his medical studies for some time as it did for both Bernstein and Pavey. During World War Two Geronimus served in the Army as a Captain in a medical supply company in San Antonio, Texas. In 1947 he returned to Edinburgh where he got married. They departed for the US in December, 1948. 
 
Aitken
   Pavey’s opponent in this game was Dr. James M. Aitken (October 27, 1908 – December 3, 1983, age 75). Aitken received his PhD in 1938 from Edinburgh University on the topic of The Trial of George Buchanan Before the Lisbon Inquisition. He learned chess from his father at age 10 and was Scottish champion in 1935, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961 and 1965. He was also London Champion in 1950. He also played in several British champioships wit his best result coming in 1959 when he tied for seventh place. During World War II, Aitken worked in Hut 6 at Bletchley Park on solving German Enigma machines. Aside from chess his hobbies included golf, philately, bridge, and watching cricket.




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